Reba McEntire Didn’t Know She Turned Down a Shot at a Role Opposite Kevin Costner

It was a dream come true for Reba McEntire when she landed her first part in a big screen movie. But she confessed she passed on pursuing more than one role after reading scripts. So, why did she turn down jobs at a time when she really wanted to be in a movie? Plus, what Kevin Costner classic did she pass on without even knowing he was in it?

Reba McEntire said acting was one of her ‘wildest dreams’ but she didn’t want to play someone just like herself

In McEntire’s autobiography, Reba: My Story, she said acting in a movie was one of her “wildest dreams.”

Though she’d taken part in television specials and music videos by then, her big screen acting debut came in the 1990 cult classic, Tremors. However, she turned down auditions for a few roles before finally choosing what she felt was the right one. That was partially because she was often asked to read for parts close to her real-life persona.

“Every script I was offered had me as a girl singer in a country band playing in a honky-tonk,” she wrote. “I thought, why would I want to be in a movie playing a girl singer when that’s what I do for a living?”

She explained she feels acting is “about fantasy” and said she wanted to be in “something different.”

So, in the end, Tremors was seemingly just her cup of tea.

No one told Reba McEntire Kevin Costner was in ‘Field of Dreams’

When mentioning roles she’d turned down in her autobiography, McEntire noted one memorable one in particular. “I read the script for Field of Dreams,” she shared, “but no one told me that Kevin Costner was going to be in it.”

“While I’m not sorry I didn’t do the picture,” she went on, “I think I would back down and play some girl singer if I was singing to him.”

She then assured husband-at-the-time, Narvel Blackstock, “That’s a joke!”

As a side note, Field of Dreams was nominated for three Academy Awards including best picture.

Reba McEntire lived rough to make ‘Tremors’

McEntire wrote in Reba: My Story she really wanted to read the script for Tremors for the director, Ron Underwood, after finishing it. But she also noted, “Auditioning is hard.”

According to her recollection, Underwood thought she might have concerns about the role. Specifically, he wondered how she felt about not wearing makeup, pulling her hair back, and getting dirty for the film.

“I guess he didn’t know how I was brought up!” McEntire said, referencing her childhood on an Oklahoma ranch. “All he knew were my publicity pictures with the makeup and big hairdos.”

McEntire confessed the shoot was “pretty rough” because they were in the desert. So, the temperature fluctuated between cold and hot throughout the day. Plus, her trailer was a “little room that had a tiny table” and a partition hiding a smelly toilet.

But she believed in the script and said she enjoyed making the movie in the end. She concluded it wasn’t “a bad way to launch a movie career.”